Originally Posted by
platbrownguy
Sorry for making what is assuredly an unnecessary new thread; I assumed there would be a wiki with this information but found only this thread (and currently at NRT, so unable to crawl through 1000 posts):
Guide to and Questions Concerning Connecting thru HNL & other Hawai`i airports
Flying NRT-HNL on JL, then HNL-OGG on HA a few hours later. Bags were tagged only to HNL. We have checked in online (but have no hard copy boarding passes) for HNL-OGG. Is there a bag recheck counter at HNL after immigration/customs like at most major US airports? Or do we need to take the bags somewhere else first? Any general guidance (or link to a thread on connecting from international specifically to inter-island) would be useful. TIA.
You can only re-check a luggage at an US airport if it is tagged to final destination. In this case, you luggage is only tagged to HNL so you can't re-check it at the bag drop. You have to physically present the luggage at a HA counter for them to put the OGG tag on it so you need to take it with you to the inter-island terminal.